Agents said the small Brevard County clinic, where office visits cost up to $400, was in disarray, didn't have an examination table or a working scale. Mirza's pockets were stuffed with cash, police said.

He was arrested on 11 counts of trafficking in the painkiller OxyContin, and state health officials suspended his license. He spent Tuesday at the Brevard County Jail without bond and faces a judge for the first time today.

"I have not committed any fraud whatsoever," Mirza said as he was being led away by agents. "All I've been trying to do is to relieve patients' suffering and pain."

"Whatever I have done was within ethical and medical standards," he said. "I was not doing anything wrong."

Leblanc of Satellite Beach and Mirza's former receptionist, Margery Rebensky of Melbourne, 38, were arrested on charges of obtaining by fraud and trafficking controlled substances, including OxyContin.

Agents arrested nine others Tuesday and have warrants for 34 others, many of whom were patients, who investigators said would sell the prescription drugs on the street.

"I consider him the same as any street-corner heroin dealer," Joyce Dawley, the Orlando director of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said of Mirza. "Actually, I think he's worse."

The almost two-year probe began when Melbourne police noticed that some of Mirza's patients were dying from prescription-drug overdoses.

Melbourne police Lt. Steve Fernez said undercover agents posing as pain patients brought in old X-rays and were able to get prescriptions for high dosages of OxyContin without examinations or other medical records. Fernez said the agents were merely asked if they hurt.

Fernez said Mirza, a Pakistan native who has practiced in the United States for 30 years, did not know that some of his staff were forging prescriptions.

FDLE officials said the investigation uncovered more than 140 fraudulent prescriptions for dozens of different people. The pills were valued at almost $1 million representing about 20,000 dosages of 40-milligram and 80-milligram OxyContin.

OxyContin, manufactured by Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., has been called a miracle drug by many chronic-pain patients. But during the past two years, more than 600 Florida residents have died from lethal amounts of oxycodone, the active ingredient found in OxyContin as well as Percodan and Percocet.

State records show that while some Central Florida counties saw decreases in oxycodone deaths, Brevard's have escalated from 12 in 2001 to 32 in 2002.

Drug experts said one of every three drug-related deaths in Florida is from pharmaceutical drugs, not illegal drugs such as heroin.

While authorities would not identify the cases they are investigating, a Connecticut family hopes Mirza's arrest could bring answers to the death of their loved one.

In October 2001, Dale Gregory, a 38-year-old Melbourne mother of a 2-year-old son, died from an oxycodone overdose. She did not have any illegal drugs in her system, but her autopsy showed a host of pharmaceutical drugs. Police reports show Mirza said he had been treating Gregory for Crohn's disease, a painful gastrointestinal inflammation, for two years.

"We've been trying to get a response from the police, but we kept hitting a stone wall," said a man who identified himself as the husband of Debbie Colby, Gregory's sister in Milford, Conn.

Those answers might be forthcoming in the continuing investigation as police interview Mirza, his staff and dozens of his patients. Investigators copied hundreds of his patient records.

Two Brevard County patients who went to get their prescriptions renewed by Mirza were distraught about the doctor's arrest.

Donna Benincasa, 55, and Karen Yanovich said Mirza was a compassionate doctor who had alleviated their pain where other doctors had failed.

Benincasa, who took methadone for Crohn's disease, said, "Without him, life would be extremely difficult these days. I don't think he was doing anything wrong. But I suspected someone would take advantage of him."

Yanovich, who took OxyContin for neck and back pain, said, "He was an excellent doctor. I had no problems with him whatsoever."

Their dismay turned to fear as they realized Mirza's office was closed with their prescriptions ready to run out.